This blog is trying to help get the information out about the Blue Water Navy and Agent Orange during the Vietnam war

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

The Most Powerful Person

I find it
amazing that in this country of ours that one PERSON has so much power that he
can decide on his own if a Bill won’t become law.

Let use look at
how a Bill becomes law;

1.A member of Congress introduces a bill.

2.Committees review and vote on the bill.

3.The Senate and the House debate and vote
on the bill.

4.The
President signs the bill—or NOT.

Now the last step mean the President can SIGN or VETO
the BILL. BUT if over 290 of the House of Representatives votes to
override the VETO and at least 67 Members of the Senator votes to overturn the
VETO then the Bills because law. Seems Fair to me that because ONE Person
decide that the bill should NOT become law then a Super Majority can over ride
the VETO.

Now if you
think I am talking about the President, you would be wrong. Let me give you an
example.

There is a Bill
in the House of Representative, HR-969, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans
Act that has 334 Members of the House of Representative that support the Bill.
Now when I went to school I did learn the 334 is greater than 290. YET in the
House Veterans Affairs Committee ONE PERSON, the Honorable Congressman Jeff
Miller is deciding, since he is the Chairman that HR-969 should not go to the
Floor for a VOTE, EVEN if there is more than a SUPERMAJORITY already in the
House SUPPORTING the Bill.

In the Senate there is ONLY 45 Members Supporting S-681, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans
Act. This is 45% of the Senate that supports the Bill. I find it hard to
believe that there wouldn’t be at least 6 more members of the Senate would vote
for the Bill, but that is a guess. It would be nice if Senator Johnny Isakson would also bring the Senate
Version to the Floor for a VOTE.

Now to be fair
to both of them I understand they were waiting for the CBO score of the Bills.
The CBO has stated that the Bills will cost about $2.4 Billion over the period
of 10 years. So that excuse is over. They are also waiting for a Write Up from
Secretary McDonald of the VA and the VA was waiting for a Write Up from the
Navy. Well the Navy has provided the Write Up telling the VA there were no way
they can test a Ship that may have been exposed to Agent Orange back in the
60’s and early 70’s. Too much time has
passed for anything to still be there.

All
members of Congress are sworn in with the following oath:

‘I
AB do solemnly swear (or Affirm) that I will support and defend the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this
obligation freely, without any mental reservation or
purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of
the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.’

It's
easy for Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans to understand this oath because it is
very similar to the oath we had to take when we joined the Navy. So the oaths
states they are going to follow the Constitution. It some what easy to
understand, well, if you can understand the Constitution.

Now MY UNDERSTANDING of the
Constitution is that both the Members of the
House and Senate are elected to represent the will of the people that not only
elected them but who they represent. This is easy enough for me to understand.
Now of course not all constituent are going to agree so they should do as a
majority of the constituent want, which is if they are in favorite of the Bill
it would seem that their constituent are in favorite of the Bill.

Now to me it
seems that at least Chairman Jeff Miller is either Breaking the Law or
Violating the Constitution by not allowing the Bill to go to a floor for a
vote. They are deciding what they want
and not what a majority of the fellow Members of Congress are wanting. So it
seems that the most Powerful Person in OUR government is NOT the President of
the United States
but the Chairman of the Veterans Affair Committees.

These are my
opinion. I’m not a lawyer; this is done with some research and guessing. I have
been working for about two years helping to get the Blue Water Navy Vietnam
Veterans Act along with many others. I started the Blue Water Awareness Group
on Facebook under 2 years ago and there we have many great members working
towards the same cause in getting the Members of Congress to understand why we
feel they should bring back the benefits that were taken away from Blue Water
Navy Vietnam Veterans in 2002.

Many of us have
the effect of being exposed to Agent Orange; in my case I have Prostate Cancer,
which is on the list of diseases that Agent Orange cause. I also have Thyroid
Cancer, which there is now finding evidence that Agent Orange may cause problem
with the Thyroid. Yet the VA says that I couldn’t have been exposed to Agent
Orange since I was stationed on a ship. Yet there are studies both here in the
US and in Australia those shows that members of the Navy may have been exposed
to Agent Orange by the way of the way the water on Naval Ships distilled for
cooking, cleaning, bathing and all the other reason water is used. BUT the VA
along with Congressman Jeff Miller don’t believe it.